White's Castle and the possibility of its acquisition by Athy U.D.C. in the 1950s

The Nationalist and Leinster Times of December 17th 1955 under the headline ‘Bord Failte foots the Bill’ reported on that week’s Athy Urban District Council meeting which had been attended by two representatives of Bord Failte. The Councillors were informed of Bord Failte’s plans to acquire Whites Castle for development as a museum. The entire acquisition and renovation costs were to be borne by the tourism authority. Bord Failte also undertook to provide suitable living quarters for a caretaker and to pay all legal costs in connection with the transfer of ownership to the Urban Council. It was indicated that the Marquis of Kildare had promised several artefacts for display in the museum, while the Acting Town Clerk Jimmy O’Higgins was pleased to announce that ‘all necessary work on the Castle would be carried out under the supervision of Bord Failte’. The Council’s Chairman Tom Carbery proposed a vote of thanks to the Bord Failte representatives, Messrs P. Lawler and P.J. Hartnett which was seconded by Matt Tynan who expressed the view that ‘the people of Athy will be glad to know that the town would soon have its own museum.’ In response Mr. Lawler of Bord Failte reminded the Councillors that ‘if Athy and other inland centres can offer an attraction of that nature, they will be handsomely paid by the money that comes from tourism.’ The Urban Council minute book records the first reference to the museum in Whites Castle as a letter to the Council from Bord Failte on 10th July 1953 suggesting that the Council purchase Whites Castle for use as a local museum. The Council members agreed to enquire into the tenure rights of Miss Norman who occupied the castle. The next reference in the Council minute book to the museum was on 2nd March 1955 after Bord Failte submitted drawings and specifications for proposed structural and decorative work to Whites Castle. The local Councillors enquiries, if any, into Miss Norman’s tenancy rights were not recorded but in considering the Bord Failte drawings it was agreed ‘to see if Miss Norman would act as a caretaker to the museum.’ A new Council was elected in June 1955 and at their meeting the following September the Councillors resolved ‘that before any final decision is taken by the Council as regards the acquisition of Whites Castle a sub-committee consisting of the Chairman Tom Carbery and Councillors Dooley and Tynan be and is hereby appointed to interview Miss Norman to obtain her view on what remuneration she will require if she was appointed caretaker of the proposed museum.’ At the October meeting the Chairman reported that he and Councillor Tynan and the Town Clerk visited Miss Norman on 5th October. She was willing to act as caretaker of the museum for £1 per week plus fees collected from visitors. She also required the Council to provide her with adequate living quarters in the Castle and to employ ‘a charwoman for the museum.’ These terms were dependant on her retaining her old age pension of 24 shillings per week. The terms were accepted by the Council subject to Bord Failte bearing the full costs of converting the castle for use as a local museum. The project advanced when Bord Failte after initially refusing to do so agreed to provide showcases for the museum. In June 1956 Bord Failte reported that if Miss Norman became life tenant of portion of Whites Castle there would be no difficulty in the Council obtaining clear possession on her death. The Council immediately passed a resolution that ‘the caretakers’ quarters in Whites Castle be leased to Miss Mary Norman for her lifetime.’ The County Manager wrote to Miss Norman on 1st August 1956 setting out the Council’s terms to which her Solicitor, P.J. O’Neill, replied on 31st August (P.J. O’Neill had been a member of Athy U.D.C. from 1950 to 1955). Mr. O’Neill claimed that Miss Norman had a ‘valuable saleable interest in Whites Castle which she occupies under a lease dated 25th April 1925 for a term of 60 years at a yearly rent of £5. Accordingly, she was not prepared to surrender her interest in the property to Athy U.D.C. without receiving suitable monetary compensation.’ The Council members having considered the letter concluded that they had nothing further to add to their original offer. The local newspaper of 6th February 1957 reported the Council’s receipt of a letter from Bord Failte which stated ‘in view of Miss Norman’s refusal to accept the Council’s offer ….. there would appear to be no alternative but to abandon the project and accordingly Bord Failte’s offer of grant in aid towards rehabilitation of Whites Castle for the purpose of a museum was being withdrawn.’ The Councillors agreed to send a deputation to meet Miss Norman and her Solicitor. There is no record of what transpired but by letter of 26th April 1957 Bord Failte advised that its commitments over the following five years ‘and the necessity for adhering to a planned programme leaves no immediate prospect of making a grant in aid towards the rehabilitation of Whites Castle.’ When I founded the Athy Museum Society in 1983 I was not aware of the opportunity which had been presented 28 years earlier to open a museum in Whites Castle. There have been three occasions within the past 20 years for Athy Urban Council or Kildare County Council to acquire the castle. However, on each occasion the local authority failed to grasp the opportunity to purchase Athy’s most iconic building. I have no doubt that some time in the future Whites Castle will be acquired, developed and opened as a public museum to complement the town’s existing Shackleton Museum.

Garda Siochana members from Athy and the G.A.A.

We are about to celebrate the centenary of the founding of our police force, a celebration which would throw up memories good and bad for every family and every household in Ireland. For many households it will be good memories of family members who joined the Garda Siochana, for others sad memories of Garda members who were killed or injured in the course of their duties as Guardians of the Peace. Others may have memories which centre on wrongdoings and the part played by Gardai in bringing offenders to justice. Whatever our memories, the Garda Siochana has played an important role in the lives of several generations of Irish people. We may complain about the apparent lack of interaction between the Garda Siochana and the general public drawing comparison with the Gardai of an earlier age for whom “policing” was such an important part of the policeman’s role. Whatever about the strength and weaknesses of the modern day Garda Siochana one welcomed aspect of the earlier force was a decision of the then Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy to encourage Gardai to be involved in Gaelic sports. It was a decision which helped to break down the barriers which existed between the Irish people and the previous policing force, the RIC, during the War of Independence. Over the last 100 years Gaelic football and hurling has had many great exponents of the games who in their everyday life wore the uniform of An Garda Siochana. Here in Athy we were privileged to have one of the great footballing greats of the past, Garda George Comerford who captained the Athy team which won the Kildare senior championships in 1937. George was stationed as a garda in Athy working out of the Garda barracks in Duke Street which was then directly opposite what was Maxwells Garage. During his footballing days George togged out for four different counties, his native Clare, Dublin, Kildare and Louth. He joined the gardai in 1931 and that same year he was the only non Kerry man on the Munster team that defeated Leinster in the Railway Cup final. He also played on the Irish team in the Tailteann games of 1932. As captain of the Athy senior team in 1937 he played alongside Johnny McEvoy of Woodstock Street who would later join the Garda Siochana. Johnny who played for the Kildare senior county team for several years also won a county Dublin championship medal as a member of the Garda football club. The 1950’s saw the emergence of two young Athy club members as stars on the Kildare County senior team. Brendan Kehoe whose father John W operated a pub in Offaly Street first played for the county team in 1957. For the following four years he was a regular on the Kildare County team. Brendan joined the Garda Siochana and retired some years ago as a Sergeant. Another Athy player to feature in the 1957 Kildare county team was Mick Carolan whose county playing career extended over a period of 18 years. Mick, who has been the subject of a previous Eye in the Past, like his team mate, Brendan Keogh also joined the Garda Siochana. He won an All Star award in 1966 and retired from the Garda Siochana as a Superintendent several years ago. Another retired member of An Garda Siochana who played football for Athy Gaelic Football Club and County Kildare is Eamonn Henry. Eamonn who is now a retired member of An Garda Siochana played as did his father for his native County Roscommon. Eamonn featured as a County player on the Kildare team between 1984 and 1987 following which he lined out for County Roscommon for another 3 years. He won a senior championship medal playing for Athy in 1987 and indeed won the Man of the Match award in that final. Anthony McLoughlin currently serving as a Superintendent in the Garda Siochana also played football for Athy and Kildare County. He was on the Athy senior championship winning team of 1987 with his garda colleague, Eamonn Henry. These men all members of An Garda Siochana who played for Athy Gaelic football club surely fulfilled Eoin O’Duffy’s desire for Gaelic sport to create comradeship within the ranks of the Garda Siochana. Their participation in the sport also helped create a bond between the members of the Gardai and the people they served as Commissioner O’Duffy had intended. The involvement of young gardai in Gaelic games up and down the country is in sharp contrast to the events of the 4th of August 1918 when the then young GAA took on the British empire and the Garda Siochana’s predecessors, the Royal Irish Constabulary who had sought to ban the playing of GAA games.

The Great Famine and Athy

Started in 2008 the National Famine Commemoration Day gives the Irish people one dedicated day each year to reflect on one of the most significant tragic events in our history. The Great Famine which started in 1845 resulted in the deaths by starvation or disease of one million Irish men, women and children and the loss of a million and a half others to emigration. The third Sunday in May was officially designated by the Government as the National Famine Commemoration Day and this year the Athy commemoration ceremony will be held in St. Mary’s cemetery across the Canal bridge from the former local workhouse, now St. Vincent’s Hospital, on Sunday the 15th of May. In December 1995 Kildare County Council published “Lest we Forget – Kildare and the Great Famine” and by doing so allowed our knowledge of a significant and sad period of our history to overtake the silence of those who survived the famine. By and large those survivors did not pass on to the next generation their accounts of the unimaginable horrors of the Great Famine and so it was left to a later generation of historians to broaden our knowledge of those distressful days. I was one of the contributors to the County Council’s publication and in researching Athy’s Great Famine story I was astonished to learn of the emigration scheme which saw young girls from Athy’s workhouse sent to Australia after the famine. The death of 1,205 inmates of Athy’s workhouse during the Great Famine was another fact from our local history with which I was not familiar. Indeed that lack of knowledge extended not only to everyone of my generation but also to all post famine generations. A Catholic priest, Fr. John O’Rourke, who served as a curate in Athy from 1851 to 1852 wrote “The History of The Great Famine of 1847” which was one of the earliest accounts of the famine. It remained a standard work for generations but even his account has no reference to Athy’s famine story. The town of Athy was estimated to have lost upwards of 1,036 persons in addition to the 1,205 who died in the workhouse. The population of Athy Poor Law Union fell by 10,701 in the ten years to 1851. Within that part of the union area located in County Kildare the actual decrease was 19.04% while in the County Laois area of the union the population loss was a staggering 28.26%. At the height of the famine 16,365 persons from the Athy Poor Law Union were fed from local soup kitchens. This represented 34% of the total population. The highest dependency on soup kitchen rations was in the Ballyadams electoral division where it was almost 100%. The possibility of hungry distressed poor people exacting retribution on the prosperous merchant class was a matter of concern for local Justice of the Peace, John Butler who lived in St. John’s, Athy. He wrote as follows to Dublin Castle in April 1848 “As the only resident magistrate in this town I beg leave to state to your excellency that a few days ago the troops quartered here were withdrawn and the town left to the protection of a few police. I beg to refer that this is a county town with a jail and nearly 100 prisoners in it, 16 of whom are under sentence of transportation and only the Governor and three turnkeys to guard them. There are two banks in the town, a barrack for either cavalry or infantry and not a soldier. I do not like my native town in these alarming times to be left to the protection of 10 or a dozen policemen”. Athy was to remain peaceful despite the revolutionary events in Europe that same year and the short lived revolution led by William Smith O’Brien which ended with what became known as the battle of widow McCormacks cabbage patch. Throughout the first six months of 1849 the workhouse numbers in Athy increased so as to require the provision of additional workhouse accommodation. A grand canal store at Nelson Street was requisitioned to accommodate the overflow from the workhouse while five houses in Barrack Street were taken over for use as an auxiliary workhouse. It was only in recent years that we have come to understand how the Great Famine physically and emotionally shattered the lives of so many families from this area. It was for generations an unrecorded and unspoken period in our local history until it gradually became part of the community’s folk memory which helped define the relationship between a decolonised 26 counties and Britain. Here in Athy our famine dead from the local workhouse were brought across the road to be buried in unmarked graves in the workhouse cemetery. St. Michael’s cemetery also holds the remains of those residents of the town who died during the Great Famine. On Sunday, 15th of May at 3.00pm a short service will be held in St. Mary’s cemetery to remember Athy’s famine dead and to recall what was the single most important event in Irish history.

The fight for Athy Outer Relief Road

We are told that history is written by the victors. Not always it seems, as evidenced by the recent publicity surrounding the “tossing of the sod” to mark the start of work on the construction of the Southern Distributor Road formerly referred to as the Outer Relief Road. This was a project first proposed in or around 1975 as part of a traffic alleviation measure in anticipation of increased traffic flows through the town of Athy. Both an inner relief road and an outer relief road were suggested as future developments for the town and the then council members Paddy Dooley, Mossie Reilly, Jim McEvoy, Cha Chanders, Christy Delahunt, Enda Kinsella, Frank English, Jim Bergin and Megan Maguire accepted the experts proposals. However, there was no follow up until 10 years later when it became known that the inner relief road was to be built with walls on either side as it went through the centre of the town. This was an unbelievable degree of planning ineptitude which prompted the councillors elected in 1985 to raise objections which eventually led the County Council officials to announce that the roadside walls would not be built. At the same time some members of the Urban Council expressed concern at the building of a traffic route through the centre of the town which prompted the then County Manager Gerry Ward to bring forward an agreement whereby responsibility for any new road development passed from Athy U.D.C to Kildare County Council. At that stage while a majority of the Athy Councillors approved the building of an inner relief road, opposition to it’s construction was increasing amongst the local people. In its later stages that opposition was led by a newly formed Athy Urban Development Group which supported the alternative outer relief road as the best solution for the town’s growing traffic problems. However, a majority of the local councillors still supported the inner relief road and the matter became a local election issue during the Local Government elections of 1999. The election of 9 members of Athy U.D.C in June of that year saw 5 members elected who opposed the inner relief road and supported the outer relief road. However, just two weeks after the election one of the newly elected Councillors changed his views to give a majority in favour of the inner relief road. Kildare County Council was now ready to proceed with the building of the inner relief road which would exit from Meeting Lane across the back square and over a new bridge to join the Kilkenny Road at Augustus Bridge. It was a proposal which was the subject of a Planning Appeal Board enquiry held in the Curragh over 8 days in 2005. The local people’s objections to the inner relief road were presented with the assistance of Derek Tynan, Architect and Conor Wall, Environmental Consultant and opposed by numerous experts engaged by Kildare County Council. The Planning Board decision of the 2nd of June 2005 rejected the Council’s plan for an inner relief road as it considered that the road would both fail as a street and as a relief road because it would continue to bring traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, through the town centre. This was a landmark ruling being the first time a local authority road scheme was rejected by the Planning Appeal Board. Undaunted Kildare County Council appealed the Planning Board decision to the High Court where they were also unsuccessful. Several years passed during which time Kildare County Council and Athy Urban District Council insisted on including the construction of an inner relief road in Athy’s town development plan. In the meantime nothing was done to advance the building of a new road. A change of attitude came with a change of personnel and the outer relief road project, fast approaching it’s 50th anniversary, was taken up and moved forward. Kildare County Council applied to the Planning Appeal Board for planning permission for the outer relief road which was granted in October 2017. The contract for the €40 million road construction contract was awarded to the Kill, County Kildare based firm BAM Ireland last October. Happily work on the much needed road has now commenced. The new 3.4 KM road will include two new roundabouts, new signalised junctions, footpaths and cycleways as well as an 80M single span bridge over the River Barrow which will allow the present railway bridge to be used for pedestrians and cyclists. It was those local people who resisted the inner relief road project and supported a call for an outer relief road who deserve our praise and gratitude. Amongst those were the following members of the development group which was formed in 1998 as a non-party political group to support the building of the outer relief road and to oppose the building of an inner relief road. They included Joan Collis, Vera Doyle, Mick Grufferty, Padraig Healy, Henry Howard, Fiona Rainsford, Liam Rainsford, Carmel Reddy and Peggy Whelan. The local politicians who supported the towns people’s opposition to an inner relief road and advocated for an outer relief road included Sean Cunnane, Frank English, Mark Dalton and Michael Foley. The true story of the campaign for the outer relief road or what is now called the Southern Distributor Road is one which is in danger of being overlooked or misinterpreted by later generations. This short account tells the true story of a controversial road project which brought a majority of the local people of Athy into conflict over several years with many of the towns public representatives and with the local authorities of Athy and Kildare County. When the new road is completed it will represent the greatest intervention in the town of Athy since the arrival of the railway in 1847.

I.R.A. and the War of Independence in North County Longford

County Longford or more specifically East Longford’s earliest identifiable connection with the Irish Republican movement was the election of Joseph McGuinness, the Sinn Fein Candidate in the bye-election of May 1917. McGuinness who was a prison in Lewes Jail in England defeated the Home Rule candidate with Sinn Fein using the slogan ‘Put him in to get him out’ for the first time. It was a slogan which would be used in many subsequent elections to equally good effect. Not so well known is that during the War of Independence County Longford, and particularly the northern part of the county saw more I.R.A. activity than any other County with the exception of those in the Munster region. Longford’s part in that campaign now forms part of the story of Longford’s Republicanism which has been written by former librarian Sean O’Suilleabhain. It follows on an earlier book dealing with Leitrim’s Republican story written by his son Cormac and Marie Coleman’s excellent book ‘County Longford and The Irish Revolution 1910-1923’ published in 2003. County Longford was my fathers home County and it was there that several generations of the Taaffe’s farmed near to the Cavan border in the townlands of Legga and Moyne. My father and his four brothers attended the National School in Moyne and it was that same school many years later my brother George joined as the school principal. My father was the youngest of five brothers, two of whom emigrated to America as soon as they reached adulthood. The oldest, my uncle George fought as an American infantry soldier in World War 1. The next two brothers James and Frank were each in time to take over the running of family farms in Legga and Moyne while my father was a pupil in the Patrician College in Ballyfin and later in the Teachers Training College in Dublin. It was in Legga that Michael Collins addressing a public meeting on 3rd March 1918 said, ‘when the Volunteers raid for arms they will go where they will find ones that will be of some use to them.’ It was for this speech that Collins was later arrested and lodged in Sligo jail. James Taaffe and Frank Taaffe were members of the Dromard Company, Fifth Battalion I.R.A., a fact not previously known to me but confirmed by the listings in O’Suilleabhain’s book. The leading Longford I.R.A. man during the War of Independence was Sean Mac Eoin, known as the legendary ‘Blacksmith of Ballinalee’ whose biography written by Padraic O’Farrell was published by Mercier Press in 1981. Mac Eoin led the search for arms which Collins had encouraged and the first serious engagement with British forces was an unsuccessful attack on Drumlish R.I.C. barracks on the 5th January 1920. A later attack on the well-fortified Ballinamuck Barracks again led by Mac Eoin resulted in the destruction of that building. The I.R.A. attack on Ballymahon R.I.C. barracks on the 19th August 1920 was the Longford Volunteers first real success when the I.R.A. men led by Mac Eoin captured the barracks, accepted the surrender of the R.I.C. men and captured their weapons. Arva, the nearest village to the Taaffe homesteads saw an I.R.A. attack on the R.I.C. Barracks on the 2nd October 1920. The barracks was set on fire and again the I.R.A. men seized a large quantity of ammunition and guns. The shooting dead of R.I.C. Inspector Philip Kelleher by the IRA while he was drinking in Kiernan’s Greville Arms Hotel, Granard on the 21st October 1920 resulted in the ransacking of the town by Black and Tans three days later. The most famous War of Independence battle in County Longford took place in Sean Mac Eoin’s own village of Ballinalee over two days starting on the 3rd November 1920. The battle of Ballinalee is an important part of County Longford’s War of Independence story as it was there that a superb defence was put up by Mac Eoin’s men in defiance of a much superior military force. The battle ended with the withdrawal of the British forces, an outcome which helped create the legend of the fearless Sean Mac Eoin, who received an address from Athlone U.D.C. on his takeover of Athlone military barracks on 28th February 1922 which included the lines, ‘as long as the story of Ireland lasts Ballinalee and its hero will be written large upon its pages.’ Into February 1921, the war continued and the Clonfin ambush of 2nd February where a British convoy was attacked and the British Commander Francis Craven killed resulted in the surrender of its men. The action at Clonfin became another famous and memorable I.R.A. victory in the War of Independence in County Longford. The day after the ambush, the British Troops carried out numerous reprisals in and around the north of the county. Granard in North County Longford was the home of Michael Collins’s fiancé Kitty Kiernan. County Longford was also the home of Ruairi O’Bradaigh, President of Sinn Fein and one time chief of staff of the modern day I.R.A. His story and that of the Republicans of the past and recent decades is outlined in O’Suilleabhain’s interesting book which adds an amount of colourful detail to the story first told in Marie Coleman’s book almost 20 years ago.

Visit of Manchester Mayor to Athy

On St. Patrick’s Day 1922, the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks on Barrack Lane, Athy was taken over by members of the Irish Free State forces. The building, erected in the early years of the 18th century and occupied as a cavalry barracks by the Princess Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards in 1716, was used as an R.I.C. barracks from 1889. Following the Barrowhouse ambush on 16th May 1921 in which William Connor and James Lacey were killed the Athy barracks was attacked by the I.R.A. without any loss of life on either side. On Friday the 17th of March, 100 years ago at 12.30 in the afternoon, after the R.I.C. police men and the few remaining British military had departed, the barracks was taken over by I.R.A. officers and men who paraded down by Barrack Lane led by Commandant Finn of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade. The Irish tricolour was hoisted over the building and so ended 700 years of English rule in the former fortress town of Athy. 100 years later, St. Patrick’s Day 2022 witnessed another parade, this time through the principal streets of Athy led by an English politician - the Mayor of Manchester. The two parades distanced by several generations highlighted the ironies in the historical relationship between England and Ireland. That relationship was determined and regulated by the imperialistic nature of the British empire but despite this Irish men for centuries helped the English to keep control over its foreign colonies by serving in its armed forces. The relationship between the two countries is pitted with paradoxes and no place is that more evident than in the history of the Irish in Manchester. The late John Dowd, one of the founding members of the Irish Association in Manchester wrote of his experiences as an Irish immigrant. “When we left home we carried nothing with us except a strong religious faith and a strong desire for advancement ----- emigration was a leap into the unknown. It was an enormous intellectual and emotional commitment to leave home and loved ones and begin an adventure filled with incalculable uncertainty, risk and hardship”. Manchester over the years was to accept thousands of Irish immigrants like John Dowd despite periodic outbreaks of anti Irish violence in that city. The United Englishmen group organised in Manchester in 1798 was closely associated with the United Irishmen and following the passing of the Act of Union there were several riots in the city involving Orange Lodge members and emigrant Irish. The anti catholic and anti Irish riots in Stockport which followed the Pope’s announcement of the reestablishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in Britain in September 1850 was a difficult time for the Irish communities in Manchester. The Murphy riots followed with Catholic churches in Manchester attacked by followers of William Murphy, an Irish man who toured throughout England lecturing against the Church of Rome. Irish men and women living in Manchester were politically active and perhaps the best known of those Irish Activists was John Doherty, a Donegal man who was to the forefront in ending the Combination Acts which made trade unions illegal. He championed the workers cause and made a huge contribution to the British labour movement. Another Irish man with links to Manchester was Fergus O’Connor a leader of the Chartist movement in the 1830’s. In more recent years the Manchester Irish were represented by many Irish organisations including the Gaelic League and the now defunct anti Partition League while County Associations representing most of the Irish counties are to be found in Manchester. I had the privilege of attending the annual dinner of the Kildare Association in Manchester 25 or so years ago where I met it’s president Tony Connolly, formerly of Kilberry and met many more Kildare folk including my old friend Sarah Allen. It was Sarah who brought me to the “Fenian Arches”, the site of the Fenian ambush in 1867 which led to public hanging of Allen, Larkin and O’Brien. Later that same day I visited the Manchester martyrs memorial in Moston Cemetery. The history of the Irish and the English has been closely interlinked ever since the 13th century but in more recent years by emigration. The conflicts of the past were symbolically ended with the taking over of English military barracks such as Athy’s in March 1922. Family members of Irish emigrants now living in England have strengthened the bonds of friendship between the two countries even if England’s colonial past is still present in the partitioned six counties of Ireland. The visit of the Manchester Mayor to lead Athy’s St. Patrick’s Day parade confirms the unique bond between England and Ireland which despite our troubled history has been shaped and strengthened by many generations of Irish emigrants.

Discovery of Shackleton's 'Endurance'

For many years I have been fascinated by the drama and the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic, partly inspired by a personal family connection to the event. I have written previously of my relation Ellen Corr, a third-class passenger, who survived the sinking and spent the rest of her life in New York. Invariably when a ship is lost at sea loss of life follows adding to the poignancy of these events. I well remember the excitement generated by the discovery of the Titanic in 1985 by the American Oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard, southeast off the coast of Newfoundland at a depth of 3,800 metres. I had a similar reaction when my phone ‘pinged’ early last Wednesday morning with the news of the finding of the polar exploration ship, Endurance. It had disappeared into the watery depths of the Antarctic Seas 107 years ago and few of us believed it would ever be seen again. The Endurance was the ship which brought Ernest Shackleton and 27 other souls south to the Antarctic in 1914 with the ambitious aim to cross the Antarctic continent, some 2,400 kilometres from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. The story is well known, how Endurance was crushed and sank beneath the ice in November 1915 and the epic journey to safety by Shackleton and his men over the following 9 months. It seemed unlikely, that after its mauling by the ice, that much of the Endurance would survive but like many of us I marvelled at the pristine imagery of the ship now sitting on the Antarctic seabed at a depth of 3,000 metres. Prominently in view was the lettering ‘Endurance’ on the stern of the ship above the five pointed star, a survival from its original name ‘Polaris’. Within hours the worlds media was in touch with the Shackleton Museum in Athy and contributions from the Museum’s directors featured in both print and television media both here and abroad. The Museum has in it’s collections a superb large scale model of the Endurance from the Channel 4 drama series ‘Shackleton’ which featured Belfast born Kenneth Branagh in the titular role. The Museum was delighted to be able to provide the ‘Irish’ angle to this breaking international story, a welcome respite to the darker stories that have dominated the news recently. With the return of the Shackleton Autumn School this October we will all have an opportunity to hear the full story of the search as Mensun Bound, one of the expeditions leaders, a distinguished Marine Archaeologist known as the ‘Indiana Jones of the Deep’, will be presenting a lecture at the weekend. Mensun, a proud Falkland Islander, came to Athy just before his departure on the Endurance 22 expedition, anxious to see Shackleton’s birthplace and to view the Museum’s expanding collection of Shackleton artefacts. The return of the Autumn School will be welcomed, marking as it will the renewal of acquaintances with visitors from here and abroad whom have made long lasting friendships with the town and its people. These connections have been sustained by virtual online events in 2020 and 2021 (Virtually Shackleton) but it is difficult to replicate the sense of togetherness which an ‘in person’ event gives to people. While the Endurance will remain on the seabed, I note press reports about the acquisition by the Irish state of two new ships for the Irish Naval Service from New Zealand. What better way to mark the centenary year of Shackleton’s death by having one of the ships named after the Kildare born explorer. His comrade in arms, Tom Crean, will be similarly celebrated with the launch of the marine research vessel ‘RV Tom Crean’ this summer which will be operated by the Marine Institute and other state agencies. Maybe 2022 will see the return of two Irish icons to the sea?

Joe Byrne Piper and Traditional Music in Athy

Last week’s release of local uilleann piper Joe Byrne’s CD ‘Uilleann Piping from County Kildare’ prompted me to look back over notes I wrote in 1996 after a visit to the weekly traditional music session in Clancys. That night’s session was marked by the appearance of 14 musicians, singers and the unique monologist Ger Moriarty. Ger, who came to Athy from Mullingar to work in M.G. Nolan’s drapery shop in Duke Street, was a regular at the weekly sessions with his witty monologues. I was presented some years later with a CD of Ger performing a number of his monologues which is a wonderful memento of a man who in his younger days acted in many of the plays put on by the Social Club Players in the Town Hall and St. John’s Hall. Others noted on that night 26 years ago were Mary Smith, singer and her husband Niall, a singer and guitar player. Dinny Langton and John Hayden were also singing that night, as was Ger Gibson whose Uncle Ned Whelan played the tin whistle. While I can’t now recall the ballads they sang that night, I do remember that their contributions were in the narrative ballad tradition which was and still is an important part of traditional Irish music sessions. I was told that Ned Whelan who was from Barrowhouse previously played the banjo, but I have since learned that he was an uilleann piper of note. Indeed, Ned had the unique honour of sharing many an uilleann piping session with the legendary uillean piper Johnny Doran and his brother Felix when they called to Ned’s forge in Barrowhouse whenever they were in the area. Uilleann piping was very much to the fore during the Clancy sessions, with piper Toss Quinn leading the session, assisted by fellow piper Seamus Byrne. Jimmy McDonnell from Skerries played the piano accordion, with Conor O’Carroll on tin whistle and Jack Dowling on button accordion. Conor has since made the transition to the uilleann pipes, following in the steps of many uilleann pipers including our own Brian Hughes who is a master piper and whistle player. Two other musicians who enlivened that night’s session were Tony Byrne on fiddle and Martin Cooney on banjo. Tony, a retired National school teacher, came from Glencolmcille in County Donegal to a school just across the county boundary in Laois in or around 1954. He was a great favourite of the Thursday night session in Clancys which today still continues after many decades. The earliest Clancy sessions may have been linked to the establishment of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in 1951. I am unsure of this but certainly it seems that public house sessions replaced the private house sessions which were a regular feature of social life in rural Ireland up to the 1950s. Sadly many of those mentioned in this article are no longer with us but the memory of that night remains with me as I look forward to the musical career of the young Athy man Joe Byrne whose uilleann piping has now been recorded for posterity. Music has been an integral part of everyday life in Athy and South Kildare for many decades. Several pipe bands based in and around the Athy area had been noted in the early part of the last century. Fife and Drum bands were also a feature of life in Athy over many decades, helping to sustain the music tradition which would in time give rise to the local dance bands of the 1940s and the show bands of the 1960s. I have often wondered what part, if any, Athy’s music tradition played in shaping the extraordinary carer of Henry Phillips who was born in Athy in 1866. Phillips was the man who over a 60-year career as an impresario and owner of the world-renowned Carl Rosa Opera Company brought the world’s leading musicians and singers to venues in Northern Ireland, including Enrico Caruso to Belfast and John McCormack and Paul Robeson to Derry. Whatever about the Athy born Henry Phillips and his enormous contribution to the music scene in Northern Ireland over many decades, Athy has earned for itself over the years a very notable music tradition. Athy, the town where the legendary piper Felix Doran died, has now provided to the world of Irish traditional music two young pipers of exceptional merit. Athy man Brian Hughes, a master musician, has already reached out to a nationwide audience and indeed to an audience beyond this island of ours with his CDs of pipe and whistle music. He is now joined by Joe Byrne, another young Athy man whose recently launched CD of pipe music from County Kildare is Joe’s first venture into the Irish traditional recording scene. We wish him well.

Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland visits Athy

We welcomed the newly appointed Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland on a day long visit to the Shackleton Museum and Athy last Tuesday. Her Excellency, Miss Mari Skåre, was appointed just over 18 months ago. She had previously been the Norwegian Ambassador to Afghanistan and her most recent appointment was as Chef de Cabinet to the President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly where she oversaw the recent elections of Ireland to the Security Council. Athy and particularly the Shackleton Museum has had a long and fruitful association with the Norwegian Embassy extending over the last 15 years. Ambassador Skåre is now the 5th Ambassador to visit the Museum and like her predecessors was anxious to learn more about the town and its history. She began her visit at the Clanard Court Hotel where she met representatives of the National Ploughing Association. Coming from a country which prides itself on the support and assistance which it affords its agricultural sector, the Ambassador was anxious to learn more about the National Ploughing Championships which returns to Raheeniska in September 2022. She met two of the driving forces behind the event, Anna May McHugh and her daughter Ann Marie. The meeting was hosted in the Fennin family run Clanard Court Hotel and the Ambassador was particularly appreciative of the warm welcome she received there. The Ambassador next called to the Shackleton Museum which over the last decade and a half has fostered an enduring and growing relationship with the Fram Polar Museum in Oslo. The Ambassador had an opportunity to enjoy the exhibits in the Museum and also met with two pupils from Ardscoil na Tríonóide accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Paul Quinn, who outlined Shackleton related research which some of the schools pupils will be embarking upon shortly. The Ambassador was then treated to a presentation on the Museum redevelopment plans which will incorporate the ship’s cabin from RYS Quest. This is the ship’s cabin in which Shackleton died on 5th January 1922 and will form an important part of the Polar displays in the revamped and redesigned museum which is expected will open towards the end of 2023. The Ambassador was treated to lunch in O’Briens pub and grocery where she was intrigued to find that the O’Brien family have been running their Irish traditional grocery and pub business since the late 1870s. The Ambassador’s trip to Athy concluded with a visit to the Athy library, followed by a tour of the Boormalt malting facilities, better known locally as Minch Malting. Due to pressure of work I was unable to meet the Ambassador until the library visit where she was hugely impressed by what is a superb example of modern Irish architecture. The visit to Boormalt provided a remarkable insight into the present day malt manufacturing process. Athy now has one of the leading malt manufacturing plants anywhere in the world and is in fact the malting capital of Ireland, a role which has evolved since the founding of the Minch malting works in 1847. 2022 marks not only the centenary of the death of Shackleton, but also marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Roald Amundsen, the great Norwegian polar explorer who enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect and admiration with Shackleton. Athy’s Shackleton Museum and the Fram Museum in Oslo are planning a number of related events to commemorate these two anniversaries which will include lectures in Oslo and Athy. The joint publication of a book of commemorative essays and other planned events are yet to be finalised. On a day in which war broke out in Ukraine the Ambassador reflected on the importance of fostering good relationships between the countries on this globe and regarded the ongoing cooperation between the museums in both Oslo and Athy as an indication of the positive outcomes that can develop from such relationships.

Dublin book shops

The recent closure of Chapters book shop in Dublin adds to the growing list of second hand book shops which have shut their doors in recent years. I remember Webbs book shops which were to be found in the 1960s on Bachelor’s Walk and Aston Quay, Dublin. That second mentioned book shop had book stalls outside the shop with well stacked book shelves inside. Its companion shop on Bachelor’s Walk closed some time before the other premises and their closure marked the end of the quayside bookshops which were once so popular in Dublin. For a book vulture like myself the years I spent in Dublin were particularly enjoyable. I worked in Baggot Street, close to Parsons book shop on Baggot Bridge which had become a Dublin literary landmark under the guidance of its owner May O’Flaherty. May, who started the book shop in the late 1940s, was always known as Miss O’Flaherty and with her behind the counter was the County Galway native, Mary King. Both appeared to be of a similar age and for book buyers they were founts of literary knowledge, ever helpful and enthusiastically advising of the works of Irish writers of merit. It was in Parsons that I met Mary Lavin, a gracious woman and a wonderful writer as well as observing, but not approaching, the poet Paddy Kavanagh on one of his regular visits to May O’Flaherty’s emporium. Parsons wasn’t a second-hand book shop but I do recall Miss O’Flaherty’s interest in the writings of Mervyn Wall and her acquisition of many remaindered copies of his books which she encouraged all and sundry to read. The aging Liam O’Flaherty who lived in nearby Court apartments was a very occasional visitor to Parsons and after I met him there he generously signed for me copies of all of his books about two years before he died. Parsons closed in 1989, while another second hand book shop which I visited at least twice a week lasted for another few more years. This was Greene’s book shop in Clare Street which was a second hand book shop with a Post Office on the ground floor and book shelves on the stairway leading to two second hand book filled rooms on the first floor. It was a wonderful place to spend one’s lunch hour and provided many exciting book finds during the 10 years I worked in the Baggot Street office. Sadly Greene’s book shop closed some years ago, as did Fred Hanna’s on Nassau Street directly opposite Trinity College. Hanna’s was a new and second hand book shop, presided over by Fred Hanna who died 11 years ago. The book shop was opened in the 1840s and taken over by Fred’s grandfather in 1907. Fred joined the business in 1951 and remembers his father who had succeeded his own father in the business buying up a substantial part of the Carton library from the Duke of Leinster. I recall attending book signings in Hanna’s by Edna O’Brien in the late 1970s and buying second hand Seamus Heaney signed books long before Hanna’s book shop closed in 1999. Another wonderful second hand book shop was Carraig book shop of Blackrock, Co. Dublin founded by Alfred Day in 1968. Carraig Books closed down in the early part of 2020 but I understand it is still carrying on business online. One of the most famous Irish book dealers of recent times was Kennys of Galway who withdrew from their High Street premises some years ago and are now to be found in an industrial estate on the Tuam Road, Galway. Galway is also home to Charlie Byrne’s book shop in Middle Street, a highly regarded second hand book shop which is probably entitled to be called the most interesting and best shop of its kind in Ireland. Charlie Byrne from County Longford trained as an archaeologist and first set up a book shop which I remember many years ago in Dominic Street, Galway. Charlie Byrnes has now become a Galway literary landmark in the same way as Kennys was some years ago when located on High Street. For the bibliophiles the opportunity to satisfy his or her search for second hand books is becoming more and more difficult. However, the loss of second hand book shops has in some way been softened by the holding of book fairs which were understandably not held during Covid 19. The Dublin book fair is a monthly event, while the Belfast and Cork book fairs are major annual events. Other book fairs are held annually in Fethard and Wexford, while the annual Graiguenamanagh book fair extending over a weekend is another event which attracts a lot of visitors to the County Kilkenny village. As the second hand book shops close a new retailing experience is opening up with the advent of charity book shops. Oxfam book shop in Parliament Street Dublin and a smaller Oxfam unit in Rathmines are worth a visit. Here in Athy we have the Lions Book Shop, opened approximately 10 years ago, where Alice Rowan works as a volunteer on behalf of the Lions Club. It provides a much-needed place for recycling books no longer required and by doing so helping Athy Lions Club charities while giving adults and young persons alike the opportunity to acquire reading material at extremely reasonable prices.

Policing and crime in early 19th century Athy

Throughout the greater part of the 19th century the dark clouds of unemployment hung over Athy. The closure of the tanyards and the winding down of the local breweries left a void which remained unfilled for many decades. Athy was a poor town in the midst of a rich countryside. Throughout the 19th century it was to be home to generations of unemployed men who with their families lived in the unfit hovels which lined it’s lanes and alleyways. Unemployment and wretched living conditions nourished the seeds of social discontent and criminality which surfaced from time to time during the first half of the 19th century. One notable crime recorded occurred on 2nd February 1801 when Joseph Higginbotham, farmer of Narraghmore, was murdered by one Christopher Duffy at Boleybeg and following the Coroner’s inquest it was found that James Johnson of Ballitore conspired with Duffy to murder Higginbotham. The Peace Preservation Force instituted by Robert Peel in September 1814 was the forerunner of modern police forces. A heavily armed force drawn mainly from the ranks of the militia and ex-soldiers, its operations sometimes gave cause for public complaint. On October 22nd 1817 Thomas Fitzgerald, the Geraldine based magistrate, forwarded to Dublin Castle the sworn affidavit of Thomas Noud of Kilmead concerning outrages committed by the new force. The replacement by the Peace Preservation Force of the local yeomanry, whose knowledge of their own locality was invaluable in combating crime, gave the locals greater scope for illegal nocturnal activities. Such activities grew in frequency and a number of incidents in and around Athy in August 1818 were the first indication of the resurgence of ribbonmen activity in south Kildare. Early in 1822 an attempt was made to burn the Athy Gaol for which a conviction was secured against a hapless individual the following March. Around this time the Peace Preservation Force was replaced by County Constabulary, a police force to which local magistrates retained the right of appointing constables and sub-constables. James Tandy, newly appointed Chief Magistrate of Police, residing at Annfield, Kilcullen was petitioned in October 1822 by some baronies to reduce the level of the police numbers in the county. The local landlords felt they were unable to finance from their own resources a large public force, whatever the consequences. However, Robert Rawson of Glassealy warned Tandy ‘that the emissaries of sedition are at work again as busy as ever …… I am assured there are regular meetings held now in this town (Athy) …… I have succeeded in dissuading the landholders of East Narragh from petitioning.’ The following years gave rise to sporadic outbursts of ribbonmen activity, such as the burning of the Athy residence of Chief Constable Dolman in 1825 for which two locals, Ging and Hutchinson were arrested. However, conditions in south Kildare had improved by 1828. Thereafter little of note occurred until 1830 when the house of Rev. Frederick Trench, Church of Ireland curate, was raided for arms when the Rev. gentleman was at Sunday Service. We are told that the raiders ‘were led by his wife quite peaceably through the dining room (where there were silver forks and spoons on the table) to his study where she opened a glass case in which were his arms, and a purse containing some money. They took away the arms, but touched nothing else.’ The ‘first green flag with white ribbon at the top of the pole ever I saw was on August 15th 1830’ wrote local man Charles Carey in his diary. It was apparently the only evidence of anti-government activity in the area at that time. The countryside had become more peaceful, no doubt due to the setting up of the county Constabulary. The general cessation of ribbonmen activities in and around Athy was marked by the first manifestation of union activity in the town. In 1832 the following notice was found posted near the Grand Canal in Athy. ‘T A K E N O T I C E From this day forward, that no man will be allowed to work in any boat without having regular wages 10/= per week. Any person or persons daring to violate this notice, will be visited by night by those people under the denomination of Whitefeet or Terry Alts. Any man putting us to the necessity of paying him a visit will be sorry; therefore any man who has not the above wages, let him not to attempt to leave Athy. I remain your humble servant Terry Alt.’ What effect this warning had on the boatmen of Athy we cannot now say. However, thereafter there was little or no local activity attributed to the ribbonmen or Terry Alts. Athy was to settle back into the murky backwaters of provincial life which in the first half of the 19th century involved continued squalor and poverty for a large proportion of its population.

the sinking of the steamer Queen Victoria February 1853

The Leinster Express of the 12th February 1853 carried the following report ‘Mrs. Walsh, Athy drowned on the sinking of the steamer Queen Victoria in Dublin Bay on a trip from Liverpool to Dublin.’ Mrs. Walsh, whom I have been unable to identify, was survived by her husband when the ship sank. The Queen Victoria was a wooden hull ship powered by two steam engines which was built in Glasgow for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company just fifteen years earlier. It left Liverpool on the night of 14th February with approximately 100 passengers and as it approached the Irish coast it was met by a heavy snowstorm which reduced visibility. The ship struck Howth Head at about 2.00 a.m. on the 15th February and the Captain, who was a sailor of much experience, not realising the extent of the damage felt that the ship could safely reach the Harbour. The damage to the ship was more extensive than he thought and it quickly began to take in water. The Freeman’s Journal reported ‘The Cabin passengers were in bed and had been wakened by the shock rushed half-dressed upon the deck found the ship fast going down.’ The Queen Victoria sank within fifteen minutes and about one hundred yards south of the Baily Lighthouse. Approximately eighty-three passengers and crew including the ship’s captain went down with the ship. The survivors managed to reach shore in a lifeboat which rescued seventeen passengers while more survivors, including Mrs. Walsh’s husband, were picked up by the crew of the Roscommon which went to the aid of the stricken ship. In my search for the full name and address of the unfortunate Mrs. Walsh, I enlisted the help of Clem Roche who identified three Mrs. Murphys in Athy in the years immediately following the Great Famine. Sarah Murphy, Charlotte Murphy and Anne Murphy were all married in St. Michael’s Church Athy and strangely their husbands all bore the same name Michael Walsh. The search for the victim of the Baily lighthouse tragedy continues. On the day the Queen Victoria sank, the new Jail on the Carlow Road in Athy housed forty-eight prisoners. Drunkenness, particularly among females, was the principal reason for incarceration while a later prison report claimed ‘loose women from the Curragh swelled the prison numbers.’ In the years immediately following the Great Famine, Athy began to adopt the commercial sophistication of an inland market town. Side by side with the unemployed poor of the town was a thriving commercial community while nearby were to be found some of the wealthiest farmers in Leinster. Seven years earlier a directory listed no less than eight blacksmiths with forges in the town and ten boot and shoemakers. Other craftsmen in Athy included a tin plate worker in Duke Street, the same street which was home to James Doyle, a tanner. Eight tailors had businesses in the town’s principal streets, Duke Street and Leinster Street with two tailors operating from Preston’s Gate. That street now known as Offaly Street was also home to a saddler’s shop and it was there that Margaret Langton carried on business as a Dressmaker. Even at a time when book publishing was in its infancy, Athy boasted a book seller in John Lahee of Duke Street while Pawn Brokers, Peter Prendergast and John Rooney both of Duke Street catered for the needs of the town’s poor. Amongst Lahee’s customers must surely have been members of the Mechanics Institute formed the same year as Mrs. Walsh’s death in Dublin Bay. The Mechanics Institute evolved from the earlier established Athy Literary and Scientific Institute which was founded in 1849. It had a reading room in the Town Hall where the English and Irish papers were available to members. 1853 for Athy was a year marked by the tragic drowning of the as yet unidentified local woman. It was also the year the town and its hinterland began to reap the benefits which were expected to accrue to a developing market town. Banking facilities in Athy, which were provided by a branch of the Tipperary Bank since the 1840s, were extended with the opening of a branch of the National Bank in or about 1850. The Hibernian Bank opened its Athy branch in March 1856 following the closure of the Tipperary Bank. The following year the foundation stone of Athy’s Gasworks was laid while the corn exchange in the Market Square opened for business on the 6th October 1857. The settlers town of Athy was emerging in 1853 with confidence from the aftermath of the Great Famine but for one household in Athy the loss of life on the Queen Victoria presage difficult times ahead not just for one family but for an entire community living in the shadows of Whites Castle on the River Barrow.

Dan Carbery's pocket watch

This week’s Eye is given over to a pocket watch story of the Carbery family written by Dan Carbery, formerly of St. John’s, Athy. I am a pocket watch. I was manufactured circa 1820/’21 and am typical of watches of the day measuring about 50 mm in diameter, weighing 160 grams and enclosed in a protective metal outer case. To ensure that I continue operating my spring mechanism needs to be charged every day which is done by winding my main spring with a key through the window in my back. The time is set by using the same key on the front centre post of the watch. As a result I am known as a key wind and key set watch. Compared to watches of today it is like contrasting a model T Ford to a modern-day Ferrari sports car. I am still working and telling the time in 2022, over two hundred years after I started providing time to my owner, or owners to be exact. I have had five generations of keepers and helped regulate the lives of most, all bearing the same name, Daniel Carbery. My first owner’s name and date of acquisition is inscribed on the back of the watch. In 1821 I was purchased by or presented to Daniel Carbery who was born in 1784. We will call him Dan(1) to differentiate between him and the other Carbery men with the name Daniel through the generations. He was 37 at the time and had come as a child with his widowed mother and brother John from Edenderry, Co. Offaly to live with his uncle and wife, the Murphys, near Athy. I was possibly purchased from and made by either Thomas Plewman of Athy, or W.P. St. John of Duke St., Athy. The brothers lived and worked a small rented farm near Brackna Woods close to the Bleeding Horse pub on the Athy/Stradbally road with their uncle, and were also carpenters. On the death of his uncle Dan and his family moved to Mullenroe, Ballintubbert, Co. Laois and rented a 12 acre farm homestead and outbuildings for £13-13-0 per annum. Dan married Sarah (nee Lawlor) and they had 12 children. He farmed the land and worked as a carpenter until his death in 1860. On the death of Dan(1) in 1860 the farm and half his carpentry tools were left to his son John, the remaining tools and me, the watch, going to his younger son Dan(2). Upon marrying a local teacher Kate Dunne, we lived in Kellyville, Co. Laois initially. They had eight children, five boys (including Dan(3)) and three girls and after a number of years moved 6 miles to Luggacurran, renting a house with 3 acres from Lord Lansdowne for 4 pounds sterling a year. They opened a shop in the house and worked ‘the farm’. In addition Dan(2) did a lot of building/carpentry work for the Lansdowne estate. In the mid/late 1870s Dan(2) was asked by Lord Lansdowne to build a house for a friend of his in Rosdohan, Sneem, Co. Kerry. A new type of concrete made from Portland cement was recently invented and the father of all modern concrete was specified for the construction of the house. Before engaging in this new work Dan(2) and I went to London to become acquainted with this wondrous new material. On completion of the house, which took about two years, the family and I returned to Luggacurran. On their return to Luggacurran the family prospered. It was during this time that the Land League, under Michael Davitt, became very effective and Daniel was an active member of the Land League. In 1885/’86 Lord Lansdowne’s tenants in Luggacurran stopped paying rent. Lansdowne tolerated the withholding of rent until 1887 and then decided to evict his nonpaying tenants starting with Denis Kilbride and William Dunne, major land holders. And so the infamous Luggacurran evictions began. They occurred on a regular basis over the next two years but the eviction of Daniel and 30 of his neighbours did not take place until 2nd June 1889. With the help of carpenters Pat Knowles and Bill Breen, Dan Carbery built 21 temporary timber huts in the field beside the Luggacurran Church. The settlement became known as ‘Campaign Square’. Dan, Kate and family lived in one of the huts for a short period before packing up all their belongings in horse and carts and walking 6/7 miles into Athy to start a new life. When the family moved to Athy Dan set up as a full-time builder. The first house we moved into was in Stanhope Street opposite St. Michael’s Church and then No. 1 Emily Square. In 1896 a detached two storey house, St. John’s, came on the market together with its adjoining yard and mill house. Dan wanted the house and Matt Minch the mill and yard. Matt by agreement made the only bid of 100 pounds, so Dan split the costs and got St. Johns House for 50 pounds. Dan set about putting on a second floor to cater for his eight children. Years later it was recognised by one of the family that the additional story was an exact replica of the top story of the house he had built in the 1870s in Sneem, Co. Kerry for the friend of Lord Lansdowne. Dan(2) died in 1896 and his son, my new owner Dan(3), completed the renovations of the house. Dan(3) married Pauline Woods from Newbridge and they reared eight children in St. Johns, the eldest also called Dan(4). The building business prospered under Dan(3) and branches were established in Carlow and Kildare, run by his brothers Peter and Dennis. After a successful life in the building industry in Athy Dan(3) died in 1949, being predeceased by Pauline in 1938. After the death of Dan(3) I was retired. Dan(4), eldest son of Dan(3), lived in Carlow and ran the building business with his brother Joe who lived in Athy. He preferred a wrist watch so after a number of years I was taken over by my current minder and fifth generation Carbery with the name Daniel.

Irish miscarriages of Justice

Just before Christmas President Michael D. Higgins signed a posthumous presidential pardon for John Twiss who was executed in Cork prison on 9th February 1895. This was the fifth presidential pardon granted since the country was declared a Republic in 1937. Twiss was a member of the Moonlighters whose physical force activities were directed against 19th century Irish landlordism. James Donovan, an ‘Emergency’ man who was caretaking a farm from which tenants had been evicted, was attacked and killed on the night of 21st April 1894 at Glenlara in the Pass of Kerry. The local R.I.C. investigated the crime and soon arrested Eugene O’Keeffe and John Twiss who was known to be associated with the Moonlighters and who had served terms in jail for his moonlighting activities. They were tried separately and the first trial saw O’Keeffe walking free following a not guilty verdict. John Twiss was of Palatine stock, a descendent of the refugees from the Palatinate of the Rhine who had settled in Ireland and particularly in west Limerick in the 18th century. His trial took place in Cork starting on 7th January 1895 before the Chief Baron Christopher Palles, described as one of the most popular judges in Ireland. By all accounts the Judge’s summing up for the jury was fair and balanced but he was not to know that the R.I.C. had improperly secured a witness since O’Keeffe’s trial who claimed to have identified Twiss near the scene on the night of the murder. The witness later claimed he was drunk when he signed his statement, but it was his statement allegedly created by the R.I.C. which resulted in a guilty verdict for John Twiss. The trial was an example of a great wrong caused by either inept, dishonest or corrupt policing practices. Harry Gleeson was a 38 year old Tipperary farmer who was hanged in 1941 for the murder of an unmarried mother of seven, Mary McCarthy. Mary, who like her mother turned to prostitution to escape abject poverty, was believed to have children by seven different men, the last having been born 6 months before she was murdered. On the morning of 22nd of November 1940 Harry Gleeson discovered Mary McCarthy’s body lying in a field at New Inn, Co. Tipperary. He immediately reported same to the local Garda Station but soon found himself the centre of a subsequent police investigation. He was eventually tried before Mr. Justice Martin Maguire of whom Gleeson’s Counsel Sean McBride wrote, ‘from the word go the trial Judge had taken the bit between his teeth and decided that the accused was guilty and should be convicted. He was prejudiced against my client.’ Another element of the trial which led to the wrongful conviction and the execution of Harry Gleeson was Garda fabrication of evidence prejudicial to Gleeson. The Gardai encouraged witnesses to make false statements and beat one witness, Tommy Reid, who had provided an alibi for Gleeson in order to get him to change his statement. Superintendent Mahony who was in charge of the murder investigation wrote to the Department of Justice following Gleeson’s conviction while the Minister for Justice was considering a reprieve stating ‘Gleeson is the type of man capable of committing the crime, there can be no doubt. He is possibly something of a sadist.’ This was not a view shared by Gleeson’s counsel, Sean McBride, or by the Mountjoy jail chaplain Fr. John Kelly who was with Gleeson in the days and hours before his execution. The chaplain’s note of his meeting with the prisoner painted an entirely different picture of Harry Gleeson which current Department of Justice officials acknowledge ‘portrayed Mr. Gleeson in a different light to the Garda Superintendent’s assessment.’ Harry Gleeson, an innocent man, was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 23rd April 1941 in Mountjoy jail. His conviction and death were a sorry indictment of faulty justice and policing systems as they existed over 80 years ago. Gleeson was granted a posthumous presidential pardon in December 2015. Nearer to our time another miscarriage of justice saw the conviction and jailing of Nicky Kelly for what was claimed to be his involvement in the Sallins train robbery in March 1976. Kelly was one of 26 members of the Irish Republican Socialists party arrested in connection with the robbery. Following his arrest Kelly was held in Garda custody for 60 hours during which time he suffered serious personal injury. Towards the end Kelly who up to then had denied any involvement in the robbery signed a false confession in order to prevent further beatings. Patrick McEntee S.C. at Kelly’s trial voiced his concern: ‘is the situation that in Ireland in 1978 we have to solemnly sit around and wait for a dead body in a police station before a reasonable doubt is raised? Robert Barr S.C. for the prosecution countered by claiming that ‘there must have been a most incredible conspiracy among the Garda Siochana to lie and prejudice themselves as well as to behave so disgracefully as is alleged against them. That is so enormous as to be patently absurd.’ The Special Criminal Court in recording its verdict apparently agreed with prosecuting counsel. Their guilty verdict was eventually overturned when Nicky Kelly received a presidential pardon in 1992. His highly publicised case was another example of unacceptable policing practices which were a hallmark of a minority of police officers in this State. Eight years after Kelly’s arrest the Kerry babies case unveiled yet another extraordinary example of Garda incompetence and allegations of false confessions and intimidation. As we approach the centenary of the foundation of the Garda Siochana we must record not only the excellent service of the many Gardai of the past and present, but also guard against a recurrence of those cases which brought shame on the Guardians of the Peace.

Shackleton's cabin

At midnight tonight a simple ceremony will take place at Letterfrack, Co. Galway. The purpose of the ceremony is to mark, to the hour, the centenary of the death of Ireland’s greatest ever Explorer. And unusually, while this iconic individual did not meet his death in Ireland, the place of their death has been in Ireland since 2015. I write, of course, of Ernest Shackleton, a native of Kilkea and Athy, County Kildare who in the early hours of the morning of the 5th January 1922 died on his ship, the Quest in South Georgia on the far side of the world. As many of my readers will know, the Shackleton Museum on Athy acquired the deck cabin from the Quest in 2016, the cabin in which Shackleton drew his last few breaths. This acquisition by the Shackleton Museum in Athy was the impetus for the planned re-development of the former Heritage Centre and transformation into the Shackleton Museum which we hope to see open in 2023. The cabin itself has been carefully conserved by the specialists at Conservation Letterfrack to return the cabin to how it looked the night Shackleton died. We are fortunate to have a good visual record of the cabin, as it was on Shackleton’s last voyage and also a good detailed description by one of the crew of Quest, a young boy scout called James Marr. Among his daily duties was to scrub out Shackleton’s cabin and he left an evocative description of it, “Don’t, please, carry away from these pages an impression of a sumptuous state room. This sea-bedroom was little better than a glorified packing case; it measured 7 feet by 6, and when you are in it you felt half afraid to draw full breath in case you carried something away or bust the bulkheads apart. The door of this cabin opened on the afterside; and on the port side was the bunk stretching the entire length of the room, with drawers beneath and a single porthole above. A small washstand stood against the forward bulkhead; shelves well filled with books on the starboard side, and a small collapsible chair completed the more elaborate furnishings. In addition, was a small, white enamelled cabinet with an oval mirror in the door, and an emergency oil lamp for use when the electricity supply gave out”. On the day before Shackleton died, he wrote poetically in his diary on his last night on earth. “In the darkening twilight, I saw a lone star hover, gemlike above the bay”. In the early hours of the 5th January he suffered a massive heart attack and died shortly afterwards. The Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, as it was known, would plough on for a few months after Shackleton’s death but ultimately the loss of the leader took much of the direction and impetus out of the voyage for the surviving crew members. One of the members of the crew, Leonard Hussey, accompanied Shackleton’s body back from South Georgia to South America where he was greeted by huge crowds in Uruguay where his body lay in state for a short period of time. His wife Emily, conscious that his heart had always been in the Polar regions directed that he should be buried in South Georgia facing towards the South Pole and he currently lies in a simple grave in the Whalers Cemetery in Grytviken in South Georgia. For many years, his grave was not marked but the ship Discovery on which he had served on his first polar expedition in 1901 to 1904 brought to the Falklands, in 1928, a headstone for erection over his grave. After being engraved there it was brought to South Georgia. Amongst the ships Officers present at this ceremony to mark the installation of the headstone was Francis K. Pease who was born on the Curragh, Co. Kildare and would later write of his impressions of the ceremony in his book ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. The small private ceremony taking place in Letterfrack just after midnight tonight will mark the centenary of Shackleton’s passing with the series of readings from Shackleton’s own publication such as the ‘Heart of the Antarctic’ and ‘South’ with a smattering of the poetry which he so loved. That gemlike star that Shackleton referred to in his last writings is the star Sirius and if you should find yourself awake just after midnight on the 5th January, perhaps you might step outside and cast your eyes skywards and see can you view the same star that the polar explorer and Irishman Ernest Shackleton saw on his last night on earth. I want to thank those generous people who left donations into my office for the Lions Club ‘Cash For Food Appeal’. Happy New Year to you all

People's Park Athy

The Peoples Park in Athy owes its existence to a past Duke of Leinster. The Kildare Observer of 9th February 1887 reporting on the death of the 4th Duke, Charles William, who had succeeded to the title in 1874, claimed that he had given the Peoples Park to the people of Athy. In fact the Peoples Park was in existence long before Charles William became Duke. The Leinster Express of 15th September 1860 reported on the revival of the Kildare, Queens County and Carlow Horticultural Show after the lapse of 7 or 8 years. It was held in the Peoples Park. Strangely this is the earliest reference I have found to the Peoples Park among the various research notes I accumulated after consulting the Minute Books of the Town Commissioners and various local newspapers accessed many years ago. I am sure a more up to date examination of the newspapers for a decade or so before 1860 would help to accurately identify when the park was provided for the people of Athy. I am satisfied that the third Duke of Leinster, Augustus Frederick, who died in 1874 was the benefactor who created the Peoples Park. He was the same man whom it was claimed in 1836 ‘built a mansion for the Roman Catholic clergy of Athy.’ The ‘mansion’ is the current Parish Priest’s house which interestingly was built for all the clergy to live in community. Michael Carey’s diary of the last century records that the first stone of what he called ‘the Priest’s house’ was laid on 2nd July 1829. The third Duke of Leinster was very generous with regard to contributions to the people and town of Athy. He had a corn exchange built in the town, the foundation of which was laid in July 1855. The building described as one of the most beautiful small buildings in County Kildare was found not to be suitable as a corn exchange due to poor ventilation and poor lighting and was subsequently adapted for use as a courthouse. I have yet to discover the significance of the stone finials which are striking features alongside the dramatic tall granite chimney stacks of the mid-19th century building. Two developments, approximately 16 years apart, might give us some indication of when the park was created. The first development was the building of St. Michael’s Church at the top of Offaly Street which was dedicated in 1841. The church is located on an axis with Church Road and presents a dramatic view of the church steeple, the building of which commenced in August 1856. This lends me to believe that Church Road, or Crib Road as we once called it, may have been laid out and constructed around the same time. The railway line had been extended to Athy in 1846, when the entrance road from Leinster Street was developed to allow access to the railway station. It is possible the road may have been extended further to meet up with Offaly Street. If this was done before the Church steeple was built in 1856 it represents a remarkable coincidence which allowed the earlier road and the later steeple to create the dramatic axial view of St. Michael’s steeple. I tend to believe that the steeple built in 1856 around the same time as the Church of Ireland rectory was part of a development which saw the construction of Church Road and the enclosure of the grounds which were laid out as the Peoples Park. The walls which enclose the Peoples Park are similar in all respects with the wall enclosing the rectory and the wall all the way down to Offaly Street. The Kildare Observer of 19th February 1887 described the Peoples Park as ‘a public park ….. flanked by a row of trees, a boulevard in fact which is most luxuriant and of great natural beauty ….. with trees of 30 years growth.’ This description would tend to support my belief that the Peoples Park was developed in or around 1856. The same newspaper reported on 20th September 1902 how two rare fir trees planted and railed to mark the coronation of King Edward were torn up overnight. On Coronation Day female members of the Duke of Leinster’s family had planned to plant the two trees, but due to their absence the trees were planted by Lady Weldon of Kilmoroney and the local rector’s wife, Mrs. H.W. Waller. The park, estimated to consist of five acres (pre swimming pool and subsequent car park development) was maintained by the Duke of Leinster’s estate for 150 years of thereabouts. The park keepers house built at one end of the park was sold some years ago when the Urban District Council acquired title to the park. Athy’s Peoples Park developed by Augustus Frederick, Duke of Leinster can be seen as his contribution to the movement for town parks in the mid-19th century. Parks for the recreation of all classes were part of a mid-19th century English movement anxious to improve public health measures for the workers and the unemployed who lived for the most part in unsanitary unfit housing. It was a significant contribution to 19th century town life coming as it did almost 100 years after the great age of landscaped gardens built and developed for the aristocracy. Our park today included a children’s playground which continues to remain unfenced, leaving the area which should be restricted to young children and their parents open to dogs and as I observed recently adults drinking cans of beer. Perhaps the Council might consider the desirability of installing protective fencing.

Covid vaccination and past vaccinations

2021 has been a hard year for many families and businesses. It was a year many of us had to work behind closed doors, while other workers continued to serve the public on a person-to-person basis. To the nurses, doctors and other hospital staff we must include the shop assistants who were available to serve the public throughout the pandemic. There are many other occupations, including teachers, who continued to provide services during the Covid pandemic and who continued to do so as new variations of the virus spread around the world. Controversy has arisen with the possibility of compulsory vaccination being imposed. Compulsory nationwide vaccination is nothing new in terms of Irish public health. In 1863 compulsory vaccination was introduced to prevent the spread of smallpox. A rare disease nowadays, smallpox was very prevalent in the 18th century and in the early part of the following century. It wasn’t until the 20th century that there was worldwide eradication of smallpox which in earlier times had a high mortality rate. Ireland of the early post famine years of the 1840s recorded approximately 1,500 deaths a year from smallpox. Smallpox deaths in 1871 were 666 at a time when it was estimated that one fifth to two fifths of those with smallpox died, while those who recovered were often blinded or left with pock marked faces. Athy’s Poor Law Commissioners who controlled the local workhouse were responsible for the operation of the State Vaccination Programme in the Athy Poor Law union area. The Workhouse minute books record the details of families who failed to bring their children to the vaccination centres following which fines were imposed. It is unclear whether those fines were ever collected or indeed were collectable given the level of poverty in towns and rural parts of Ireland at that time. Despite the apparent success of the vaccination programme there were further smallpox outbreaks in Ireland between 1871 and 1873 during which period almost 2,000 smallpox deaths were recorded in the Dublin area. The last major epidemic of smallpox in Ireland occurred in 1878/’79. Then the Dublin area recorded 1,490 smallpox deaths and here in Athy between 2nd July 1878 and the following 18th January 24 smallpox deaths were recorded in the local fever hospital. Included amongst the dead were five children, twelve labourers, one boatman, one governess, Richard St. John, jeweller and Samuel Connolly, a druggist, as chemists were then described. These were only the smallpox deaths registered in the Fever Hospital which had been built with funds initially gathered by the townspeople for a Mr. Keatinge following the destruction of his business premises by fire. Keatinge donated the funds collected for the building of the Fever Hospital. The Union Workhouse, as it was called, also had a fever hospital which I suspect was no more than a small isolated building kept apart from the main workhouse building. The smallpox deaths recorded in the Workhouse fever hospital during the smallpox outbreak of 1878/’79 have not yet been identified. During the past year there have been a large number of deaths, both nationally and locally, not all Covid related. However, funeral arrangements have been restricted and this has been especially difficult for families who lost loved ones. During the past year I lost three classmates, none of whose deaths were Covid related, but nevertheless Covid restrictions meant that many former classmates were unable to attend their funerals. Peter Whelan, Teddy Kelly and Pat Flinter were men I had known since childhood and their passing leaves me with sad but treasured memories of times past. Two other deaths this year were of men with whom I shared experiences for almost 40 years. Trevor Shaw I admired for his unwavering commitment to the social and commercial development of his hometown, while Toss Quinn was a highly respected lawyer, whose passion for Irish music and uilleann piping were the hallmarks of a truly cultured Irishman. The photograph shows two relatively young Solicitors with files in hand standing outside the Courthouse in 1992 taken by the late Gerard Osborne.

Tadhg Brennan memories

While isolating during the past few days I had an opportunity to go through papers I collected, stored away and it must be acknowledged forgot about for many years. Amongst those papers I found a letter from Tadhg Brennan which he wrote from 2 Beechgrove on 11th December 1995 with the opening paragraph, ‘After you had driven off I remembered a few other characters in Athy in my young days’. He then went on to write over six pages details of several of those characters as he called them, whom he remembered from Athy of the 1930s and 1940s. I found it interesting that he wrote of Archdeacon McDonnell, former Parish Priest of St. Michael’s, as one of those characters. Tadhg claimed he was ‘a priest ahead of his time’ who said first Mass every morning ‘in about 12-15 minutes’. Apparently, the same priest had a big following for confessions as he listened, never questioned, and invariably gave a penance of three Hail Marys. Tadhg claimed there was always a queue at his confession box, bigger on the altar side for it was said he was deaf in the left ear! Tadhg’s opinion of the Archdeacon, or Canon as he then was, was shaped in part by contrasting his style with that of his predecessor, Canon Mackey whom it was claimed attempted to control everything in the parish. Tadhg wrote: ‘Canon Mackey threatened my father to read him off the altar and possibly have him excommunicated because of some difference they had about the Catholic Young Men’s Society.’ Canon Edward Mackey, who was born five years after the Great Famine, was Parish Priest of Athy between 1909 and 1928. These years included periods of great civil unrest in Ireland and encompassed the years of the Great War. Canon Mackey supported the recruitment campaigns for the British Army during World War I and spoke at recruitment rallies in Emily Square. It was no wonder so many young men from the town enlisted when the local Parish Priest and civic leaders including Athy Urban District Council’s members supported the recruitment campaigns. Canon Mackey died on 31st March 1928 and is commemorated by the fine marble pulpit which was installed in the Parish Church and financed by the people of the parish of St. Michaels. Fr. Patrick McDonnell replaced Canon Mackey as Parish Priest, becoming a Canon in 1934 and Archdeacon in 1953. He died on 1st March 1956 and the local Urban District Council named the new housing estate built on Holland’s fields between the Kildare Road and the Dublin Road as McDonnell Drive. Several times I have come across references in the media and elsewhere to McDonald Drive. It’s correct name, McDonnell Drive, commemorates the man whom Tadhg Brennan regarded as ‘a priest ahead of his time’. Tadhg’s high opinion of Archdeacon McDonnell was not shared by me, for my abiding memory of that priest is his annoyance at my failure to say the Act of Contrition correctly when as a schoolboy in St. Joseph’s I was brought with my classmates by Sr. Brendan to have our confessions heard by the Parish Priest. I must have been 6 or 7 years old and annoyed at my faulty confession practice the Canon who was sitting at a makeshift confessional near the side altar rattled his walking stick at me, prompting me to run. In later years I served Mass for him at the same side altar, but the incident of the unfinished confession was never mentioned. One of the other men mentioned by Tadhg was ‘Sticker’ Ryan, whom he described as a great Labour party man who lived in Foxhill. Tadhg got to know ‘Sticker’ after Tadhg was elected as a Fianna Fáil urban councillor in the 1940s. Both men became great friends and had what Tadhg described as ‘many a heated argument and as many philosophical discussions’. ‘Sticker’ he described as a small determined man with a big heart and a great mind. Tadhg regarded ‘Sticker’ Ryan as one of the exceptional people he got to know through local politics and finished his references to him by writing ‘I would go so far as to say he was unique, a true follower of James Connolly.’ In my research over the years I have come across fleeting references to ‘Sticker’ Ryan but Tadhg Brennan’s letter of 26 years ago prompts me to chase up the story of the man who made such an impression on the retired State Solicitor/County Registrar. If there is anyone reading this article who can give me any information regarding ‘Sticker’ Ryan of Foxhill I would be delighted to hear from them. The Irish Times on Wednesday last under the headline ‘Kindness of Others inspired 40 years of contributing to the community’ told the story of 79-year-old Seamus O ’Doherty’s contribution to the people and town of Clonmel. In accepting the Community Hero of the Year Award Mr. O’Doherty spoke of his parents and the difficulties they faced after his father’s battalion was disbanded at the end of World War 2. ‘We were living in one room in a house in Clonmel. There was no electricity, no water, no heating. My mother cooked on a primus stove ….. what I remember was the kindness of neighbours.’ His story must remind us of the families who need our kindness this Christmas and indeed throughout the year. We must look out for our neighbours while helping those local groups such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society who do so much to alleviate the hardship experienced by so many parents and children, especially at Christmas time.

Visit of Mensun Bound and Colin Teague to Athy's Shackleton Museum

The Shackleton Museum in Athy recently played host to two interesting visitors from abroad. Both of them were drawn to the Shackleton exhibit which remains the only permanent exhibition devoted to Shackleton anywhere in the world. First was Colin Teague whom came on behalf of ‘Reach the World’ which is a United States based educational organisation which uses a virtual platform to support educational projects all over the world. One of their current projects is linked to the forthcoming search for Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance. The Endurance was the ship Shackleton used for the planned traverse of the Antarctic in 1914. As many of us will know the ship got trapped in the ice in late December 1914 and Shackleton and his men were to remain marooned on their ship until the following October. In late October 1915 the Endurance was enveloped in ice, later crushed by the ice and ultimately sank. What followed thereafter was the wonderous escape from the Antarctic led by Shackleton without any loss of life. The rescue of Shackleton’s men from Elephant Island was marked by the unveiling of the statue of Shackleton in Emily Square, Athy on the centenary of this event on the 31st of August 2016. With the approaching centenary of Shackleton’s death in January 2022 ‘Reach the World’ sees this as an opportunity to bring Shackleton’s life, adventures and his leadership into the classroom. They have also been inspired by the planned expedition to the Antarctic in February 2022 to locate the wreck of the ship Endurance. The leader of that expedition, ‘Endurance 2022’, Mensun Bound recently made a special trip to see the Shackleton artifacts in our local Museum. A native of the Falkland Islands, Mensun is one of the foremost Marine Archaeologist’s in the world. Among his many projects are the excavation of a 6th Century BC shipwreck near Tuscany and the discovery of the second world war German battleship, Graf Spee, in the River Plate in 1997. In this quest for Endurance he will lead an international team of marine experts, environmental scientist, and engineers who will employ the latest in marine technology to search for and hopefully locate the Endurance. The ‘Endurance 2022’ expedition will depart from South Africa in February of next year and will have a limited window of opportunity of no more than twelve days in the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea to find the Endurance. The environment in which they will be working will be incredibly challenging and they have no guarantee as to its likely success. Mensun himself believes that with the wealth of expertise on his team he is confident that they can find the ship. As part of the expedition they will be linking in with ‘Reach the World’ to talk to students about the Endurance, about Shackleton and also about the heroic age of exploration in the Antarctic. Discussions will include environmental issues in Antarctica and will hopefully open up debate and research into science, geography, history and politics in classrooms all over the world ‘Reach the World’ has created a dedicated web page to allow students to follow the expedition and will cover a variety of topics which are very relevant to today’s students such as social studies, geography, English, biology, maths, and technology. It is an interesting and innovative approach to exploration with the emphasis placed on engaging with educators and children. Colin Teague himself is seeking expressions of interest from primary and secondary schools in Athy and has invited any teachers who are interested in linking their classes into the project to contact him by email at colin@reachtheworld.org. Teachers can also register their class or schools at www.reachtheworld.org. It is hoped that the schools in Athy will become part of this very worthwhile project.

Lions Club annual Christmas Food Appeal

This year’s Lions Club annual Cash for Food Appeal will be limited to Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of December from 9.30am to 4.30pm. Because of Covid restrictions Lions members will not be in attendance at the local supermarkets as in previous years. Instead, a stall will be set up in Edmund Rice Square where everyone willing to help those in need within our own local community can contribute to the fundraising venture. All monies collected will go to the local St. Vincent de Paul Society. This year, more than ever before, the volunteers in the local St. Vincent de Paul Society, need your help to ensure that local families in need can enjoy over the Christmas period a short respite from their daily financial difficulties. There are so many young children in this part of the county whose parents do not have the means or the opportunity to give their children the carefree enjoyment which children deserve. These are parents who for the most part have been devasted by the economic fallout from Covid. They simply do not have the means to live life to the full resulting in deprivation for many adults and children alike every day of the week. The members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society freely give of their time to visit the homes of those families in need in order to provide much needed financial assistance. They look to those amongst us who can afford to do so to share what they can with those less well-off members of our local community. The Lions Club members who have been involved in so many charitable events over the years regard the Christmas Cash for Food Appeal on behalf of the St. Vincent de Paul Society as one of the most important contributions its members can make to community identity and solidarity. The Cash for Food stall will be very visible in the Edmund Rice car park, but understandably it will not be as well positioned as previous years’ collection points which one met at supermarket exits. The Lions Club members and the St. Vincent de Paul members will greatly appreciate any financial help you can give during the three days of the pre-Christmas collection. Lions Club members Mary Feely and Aisling Hyland have produced a wonderful series of Christmas cards featuring local scenes which are ideal cards for Athy folk to send to friends and relations this Christmas. I expect the cards will be available to buy at the Lions Cash for Food stall. On St. Stephen’s Day the Lions Club 5km run will start at 10am from opposite the Auld Shebeen with a route along the proposed Blueway towards Cardenton. The race which was initiated 3 years ago by Lions President Brian Dooley and organised with great success by the Club’s late secretary Mary O’Sullivan, has been renamed in honour of the late Mary. The Mary O’Sullivan Memorial Race will be an annual feature of Athy’s Christmas holiday period and I am told it is hoped to present SNOODS to all participants. I had to ask what a snood was as I never came across the term before. Apparently it is a seamless neck scarf bandana which makes me wonder if the Lions President is busy knitting them! However, I do know that while you can register for the run on St. Stephen’s morning, Brian would like to hear expressions of interest in advance. Maybe it is something to do with the knitting! Seriously though, contact Brian Dooley if you intend to take part in the Mary O’Sullivan Memorial Run. The entry fee is €10, with all proceeds going to local charities. Athy Lions Club recently lost one of its founder members with the passing of Trevor Shaw. Trevor was a great contributor over many many years to the charitable work of the club and was an active member right up to his unexpected sudden death. The once all male membership of Athy Lions Club has changed in recent years, with several female members now providing the energy, imaginative ideas and the commitment which makes the Lions Club such an important element of community solidarity in Athy. There is always a welcome for new members, for women or men who are prepared to share their time, experience and goodwill for the benefit of the local community. Again the person to contact if you would like to offer yourself as a Lions member is the current Club President Brian Dooley. The material on display at the recent exhibition organised by Dr. Anne Murphy during Heritage week has now found a permanent home in a delightful publication titled ‘Annals of Athy 2021’. It brings together the exhibit material relating to the agricultural, industrial and sporting heritage of Athy and South Kildare and the book which is on sale for €20 can be bought in Willie Mahon’s stationery shop or the Lions Book Shop. On a personal level Vol. IV of Eye on Athy’s Past consisting of my articles published in the Kildare Nationalist between June 1999 and December 2000 which was launched during Covid 19 is for sale in Winkles. It would make an ideal Christmas present, especially for Athy folk living away from their home town.

Tourism potential for Athy

‘There is nothing at all for Athy’. So said my wife as I prepared to write this week’s article. ‘Kildare Village is expanding, while Newbridge is benefitting from a huge housing development on the outskirts of the town.’ I had just returned from an all-day conference in Kilkea Castle organised by County Kildare Tourism Board and my wife’s unsolicited comments prompted me to reflect on what the future might hold for Athy. Having survived uprisings, epidemics and manmade disasters during the 800 years of its existence, Athy retains a charming presence in the south of the shortgrass county. It’s narrow medieval streetscape was breached in the 18th century by a canal and in the following century by a railway. Both canal and railway boosted the flagging business fortunes of what was an agricultural outpost and helped Athy to develop as a market town of the first order. The original business models of the canal and railway have now given way in the case of the canal to leisure activities, while the railway has opened up Athy as a distant but reachable dormer town of our capital city. Business life in provincial Ireland has changed enormously in recent years, but especially so during the past two coronavirus years. It is difficult to anticipate what the future may hold but there is a growing awareness that the town’s future will include with the manufacturing, commercial and services mix, a fourth component of tourism and leisure activities. Athy is generally viewed by visitors as a very attractive town but one which is yet to awaken to the commercial and social benefits which could arise by making better use of our local waterways. The revival of the commercial heart of the town can be expected to benefit from the removal of heavy traffic with the opening of the outer relief road. Part of that revival must and should see the opening of more small independent shops offering quality goods. The local shopping experience must be improved and the removal of through traffic from the main streets will not in itself be sufficient. Behind the pleasant shop fronts, visitors and locals alike need to find services and goods which both attract and satisfy customers. Without intending to claim that the local economy would rely heavily on tourism, a vital part of Athy’s future as a possible tourist destination is the Blueway development, with the Shackleton Blueway hub at the rear of Hoares Lock. The significance of this development can be gauged when one considers the success of various Greenways and Blueways opened up around Ireland in recent years. The decision of Kildare County Council to proceed with the Blueway development as far as the county boundary contrasts sharply with Carlow County Council’s failure to allow the Blueway development to continue through County Carlow. In the very centre of Athy stands the building erected by the County Kildare Grand Jury in the early years of the 18th century. Known by generations of Athy folk as the Town Hall it will in the near future be adopted and extended to house what will be a major tourist attraction in this area. The Shackleton Museum will feature many artefacts relating to the Kilkea-born Polar explorer, as well as a substantial Polar research library. The worldwide success of the recent Shackleton Autumn School clearly demonstrated how significant the Shackleton Museum can be in terms of attracting tourists to the town. Athy, once regarded as Leinster’s foremost market town, later became a town of iron and bricks with a multiplicity of foundries and brick yards. These are now long gone, replaced in the 1930s and succeeding years by a number of factories, some of which are no longer in existence. Athy, now in part a dormer town, has embarked on the next stage of it’s development. Part of that development will hopefully see Athy emerge as a tourist attraction with the development of the Blueway and the opening of the Shackleton Museum. The comment which opened this article claiming that ‘there is nothing at all for Athy’ is I believe an overly pessimistic view. The town is well positioned to benefit from the anticipated increase in future tourism and leisure travel and I believe the market town of old will meet whatever new challenges are presented. The tourism conference in Kilkea Castle brought together a wide range of persons involved in that industry. It was heartening to hear the organisers speak of the importance of tourism to the County of Kildare. Tourism might today be seen as an unusual addition to the manufacturing and commercial life of the town. However it’s untapped potential must be seen as an important part of the town’s future.